CONFIDENCE: what is it?

This is the first post of the series about confidence, in the first I´ll try to clarify the meaning of Confidence, in the second post , I'll talk to seek a balance between real and perceived skills, the third will be an analysis of how you may lose trust , the fourth strategy is to recover and the fifth post on how to increase it. I hope you enjoy it

What is it Confidence?

It is often said that tennis is a sport where the mental aspect has a big influence and certainly not opposed to that line of view, however , I will elaborate on this aspect , so I want to talk about " Confidence " and refer to it first, in semantic terms , and second in reflexive terms .

According to the dictionary, Confidence means: Steadfast hope you have someone or something . Although the clearest definition I found looking its etymological origin. Confidence, ,which comes from the Latin word , which means Con: with (near ) and Fides: Fe ( Faith ) . Accordingly , trust is faith or do something with Faith , doing something blindly jump without knowing what will happen , trusting , or having faith , that what will happen is what we expect to happen .

Confidence , therefore, is in the domain of belief. There is no certainty on confidence. Confidence is a feeling, an intuition, which suggests to me that something that is apparently off limits , feasible to be accomplished . By definition , trust is not earned , you have or you dont have it.

How the players define the Confidence?

Inquiring between players of different levels , I found they perceive the confidence similarly, here are some examples:

" Fearlessness ", " to be sure of myself ", " to be sure that what I do , I do it well ", " being sure about the result ", " believe in yourself , believe in the ability to do something "

Analyzing all these definitions, some are focused on belief, while others are focused on a result , security in expectation fulfilled . From my perspective , those who put confidence in terms of results , are located in the area of Reliability which is understanding the ability to do something with high success rate . Therefore , confidence is not synonymous with reliability .

I can be very reliable hitting forehand to forehand in a static position , but lose reliability when I do it from a position more dynamic , for example running and hitting . This means that reliability is given in certain circumstances , or what is the same, the reliability is circumstantial.

This duality Confidence- reliability , we must also consider the possibility of error , the margin that the player has to avoid mistakes , and this is very ambiguous , depends on many factors and I ll speak about this in future posts.

There is a fine line between confidence and reliability, and feed each other . Can I be reliable if I do not trust my skills ? Or do I have confidence if I am not reliable ?

I think confidence is a higher level of reliability . Make a proposal to consider these aspects in training, from my point of view, I think we must first know what it is actually each one.

I propose these distinctions :
• Reliability :means that my abilities are in the level of the circumstances and I can use with very less margin of error
• Confidence: Feelings to expand my skills regardless of the circumstances , beyond limits.
• Overconfidence : I assume that reliability is higher than it really is
• Loss of confidence : when the situation (real or perceived) absolutely exceeds my skill level (real or perceived)
• Increase confidence: when the situation (real or perceived ) represent a manageable challenge my (real or perceived ) abilities

Narrowing the gap between real and perceived skills is one of the keys to high performance since it has direct influence on the decision-making process .
The next post will talk about the Real and Perceived skills